by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Putin Parties With German Ex-Chancellor, Sanctions Be Damned
Putin is a master at this game. Even as the sanction spiral is supposed to strangle his ambitions for the Ukraine, he set up a photo op of incomparable ingenuity. And his confidant, ex-Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder stepped in it with gusto.
by Don Quijones • • Comments Off on Liars, Damned Liars, and Spanish Banks
By Don Quijones: “Spain’s banks are back on track,” the Spanish Banking Association announced to great fanfare. That’s the official story. But these banks reported financial results that “bear no relation to reality.”
by Contributor • • Comments Off on ‘People Don’t Grasp Yet What European Unification Will Cost Them’
By Cassandra: In the South of the Eurozone, people feel crushed, their future sacrificed on the altar of the Holy Euro. I’m in the Netherlands, so north of the Great Divide. We’re not suffering as much as the people in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Not yet.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on What the Heck is Going on With US Treasuries In Belgium?
The tiny country of Belgium with a GDP of $484 billion, a country that became famous to the chagrin of some people because it did just fine for a couple of years without a national government – well, it’s growing an enormous mountain of US Treasuries.
by Don Quijones • • Comments Off on “Uncreative” Destruction: The Troika’s Hostile Takeover of Europe
By Don Quijones: The story is now playing out across Europe’s bailed-out nations. The losers are by and large the poor and middle classes, while the beneficiaries are the same as always: the world’s largest multinational corporations and banks.
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Head of EU’s Newfangled Bank Regulator: Markets Are Dumb, Pumps Stocks Of Teetering Banks To Keep them From Toppling
It’s not often that a bank regulator proclaims stocks of teetering banks are undervalued because markets are too dumb to value them correctly. That’s what Danièle Nouy, chair of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism just proclaimed. She has a motive.
by Don Quijones • • Comments Off on Another Day, Another Political Scandal In Spain’s ‘Mafia State’
By Don Quijones: Political corruption has already become synonymous with political leadership in Spain. But now there’s a spectacle of political hubris and impunity so farcical and obscene that it leaves no doubt in one’s mind: Spain is run by a mafia state!
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Turns Out, Even The Price of Beer Is Rigged
Everything is rigged. Stock markets, forex, interest rates, gold, silver, oil…. After battling that rigged world all day, you finally get to take that first big gulp of beer to heal the wounds, knowing that it’s the one thing that hasn’t been rigged against you. Or so you’d think.
by Don Quijones • • Comments Off on Peaceful Indignation Turns to Violent Rage in Rajoy’s Spain
By Don Quijones: It was the first nationally coordinated grassroots response to repressive social and economic policies and widespread corruption of Spain’s ruling political caste. But it descended into violence– as the government is playing a dangerous game.
